Inspiration Porn

Inspiration porn, a term coined by the late disability activist, Stella Young, refers to the objectification of people with disabilities in media, which serves the purpose of making the
consumers, people without disabilities, feel good. There are three main types of inspiration porn. The first occurs when a person with a disability receives praise for participating in a “normal” activity such as joining their school’s football team or being invited to homecoming by a person without a disability. The second type of inspiration porn occurs when a person with a disability “overcomes” their disability in order to participate in a specific activity. A common example of this type of inspiration porn is viral videos of people who are deaf getting their hearing aids for the first time or a news story about a child with a prosthetic leg running a race. The third type of inspiration porn occurs when a person with disability receives assistance from a person without a disability and then the person without a disability is glorified for their service to humanity. For example, this headline last year when a famous football player who sat with a boy with autism at lunchtime.

Now, why would inspiration porn be considered problematic? Doesn’t it seem like a step forward in including people with disabilities in the mainstream media and, therefore, mainstream
society? Well, inspiration porn, while well-intentioned, actually results in the opposite of inclusion, because it makes people with disabilities seem extra special. The inclusion of people with disabilities should not be newsworthy, it should be a common, everyday occurrence. In reality, we are just people like everyone else. In its essence, inspiration porn takes away humanity. When a teenager without a disability asks a teenager with a disability to the prom with the motivation of making the person with a disability feel “special”, the person with a disability is made into a spectacle. While you could argue that inviting a person with a disability to the prom is the same as attending with a friend, the real issue lies in the news coverage of the event. The teenager without a disability is turned into a saint by the media, while the teenager without disability is turned into an “object of cuteness” for the sake of the consumer. Rarely, in these stories, do we hear from the person with the disability, and that is because they are no longer a person; they have been objectified to the point where
they are considered something completely other than human.

Inspiration porn is used to hide problems that people with disabilities face. While we are distracted by the famous athlete sitting with a boy with autism, we don’t stop to consider why he
was sitting alone in the first place. It could be that he likes to sit alone, or it could be that he was being ostracized or bullied. While we are distracted by the teenager without a disability and teenager with a disability going to prom together, we don’t consider the fact that the two teens may genuinely enjoy each other’s company. Sadly, society assumes that the person with the disability is undesirable and the person without a disability is doing them a favor by going on a date with them. This perpetuates two harmful myths: the belief that people with disabilities are “less than” and the belief that anyone who spends time with the person with the disability is doing so for charitable reasons.

The type of inspiration porn which praises the person with the disability for “overcoming” their disability suggests that one must function in a typical way in order to be considered valuable to society and reiterates the equally harmful idea that anyone with a disability who chooses not to follow the same path is being “lazy”. No one should have to assimilate in order to be considered successful. No one should have their choices judged. No one should have to separate themselves from their identity as a person with a disability in order to be considered equal. No one should be objectified and dehumanized. No one should be a part of inspiration porn.

Please, for the sake of the disability community, think about everyone before you click share.

By, Grace Trumpower

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